I feel that having a mentor can be very beneficial to an incoming teacher that is new. But I think that if each new teacher was paired up with a more experienced teacher already in the building would work out better. Teachers need to experience everything on their own; yes it will be hard, confusing, or stressful, but that is how all of the other teachers learned. By having a teacher in the building be a mentor, the new teacher can go to that teacher before school, during breaks, and after school and ask any questions and tell them about any situations or problems. Then the new teachers can get that mentor's opinion and resolution of what she should do next time. But having a teacher in the room while you teach would be very uncomfortable for me. I rather experience it myself during that time, and go for advice when I get a chance.

I think this is a great idea. I can only imagine how nervous and scared I am going to be my first year of teaching. I think having a mentor would relieve so much stress and guide new teachers throughout the year. I think that the mentor should offically be a mentor for the first year, and will be able to inform the teacher about the school, the policies, and other information that would be helpful to a new teacher.

I go both ways on this topic. In one way it would be a great thing to have a mentor. New teachers would be able to go to them whenever they needed them. However, there will always be new things that come up every year that teachers will be unprepared for. So how long will this tutor last? Will they be there all? Or is the mentor just another teacher in the building. Yes, having a mentor is good, but it depends on what kind of mentor they are talking about. I think that by having a mentor as one of the other teachers in the school would be great, but someone that is always in the classroom would not be good because new teachers learn so much their first year and i think it is a good experience if no one else is always in their classroom.

I think this is a great idea. I also think that a new teacher who is "on the ball" will seek out more experienced teachers anyway to use as a guide or a resource. All the professionals we will work with can all be resources to us in some way at some time. I think it would be good to have new teachers have a mentor because there are probably new teachers who might be a little stubborn and think that they already know all they need to know to run their class and not be receptive to new ideas.